It seems to take a long time to believe you are the kind of person who can be trusted with yourself.

Things that journey to the end
Things that die and then. .

Hope is not empty
But hope is. .

Hope is the pause
The empty space
The known unknown
The. .between
One thought and the next
Where all the possibility
For change is harbored
And all certainty
All absolutes
For a. .suspended

I would try and tell you
That this moment never ends
If you'd stop and try to live forever
In a life with no regrets
I would try and tell you
That you've already come this far
If the past were still beside you
And the future truly ours

Would you keep fighting for tomorrow
If I said the war was always won?
Would you still strive to ease your sorrow
If I said your past had never been?

But never mind the war
We stand
On battlefields of distant pasts
And futures
And so we fight
Not to win
But for our life.

I wonder if, from a perspective outside of time, it might be possible to experience every moment equally, resulting in a singular, fixed perspective of the universe where we might see an endless chain of parallel possibilities. Perhaps both perspectives would even be equally valid. From within the linear experience of time, at any point in the timeline many different branching possibilities can be contemplated that collapse to a single fixed thread when observed from the outside.

Mostly just a thought experiment, but I've always found it interesting that quantum phenomena are described as being in a state of flux until observed, wondering if our 'uncertain futures' might also collapse to a single certainty when observed from a much larger perspective.

Inspiration is a beautiful confusion - a realization of possibilities that always were, but never would have been, without you.

Water can be hard to come by out in the forest. Clean water even more so. At times, even the trees find it hard to gather enough water; dead leaves and needles gather thickly at their feet.

My droughts are ones of motivation - where at times it flows swiftly through my life like a river, at others I could walk for ages just to find a drop. Yet...it's always been about having too much of one thing, and not enough of another. Endless cloudy days bring floods of rain, yet sunlight makes plants grow.

In drought it is the opposite. The presence of the sun can be felt even in the shade, and little shelter from it can be found.

Too much of something that would otherwise have been valuable makes it a danger. When it comes to droughts, I only really lose my motivation when I have far too much time. It's as if only now do I have enough time to find the exact right thing I "should" be spending my time on, and I can finally afford to waste time on a thousand other things I wished I had enough time for.

I have the feeling that some people know how to deal with this already, and perhaps it should be obvious. There are always important activities in our lives that we've neglected when things get really busy. Taking the time later on when things slow down to address the chores and forgotten promises of life seems to be the answer, at least for now.

...maybe fantasy was always the worst kind of unrequited love. Could it be necessary that we try to fall in love with something real?

For a long time, I've felt the need to find something to spend the rest of my life doing, however long that might turn out to be. I've wondered if I've never settled simply because I never would, that my only satisfaction was to be found in the constant pursuit of something new. I still don't know for certain what my future should look like, but for now...I'm going to pour all my energy into writing and see where it leads.

Writing is the only thing that, despite all the other avenues I've explored, really comes naturally to me. I don't mean to say my writing is perfect or never takes any effort; writing just flows in a way that nothing else does for me. It appeals to me as a means of expression in way that nothing else does.

Despite my wanderings, I've found only a single path through the forest. I guess it's time to start walking.

A few thoughts have begun to crystallize into something that's probably obvious but is still worth stating.

'What makes me who I am is not what I want but what I choose.'

Aside from that, I'm exploring a particular state of mind, or what I would call a place I've discovered (because I find metaphorical labels meaningful). In this place, my mind is quiet, but not silent, and I care enough to share what comes to me. Not everything is quick and simple or easy to find (what I look for doesn't always come to mind), so I see it as more of a forest than a path.

It's a good place to start, and I'd like to get used to it and figure out how to spend time here when I want to. That's sort of abstract, but it's basically just learning how to drop things that might be worrying me without entering a completely timeless and empty state. This is somewhere in between singular focus and being completely unfocused.

In my experience, very little honest expression is done without anxiety or embarrassment. Confidence comes at the cost of long periods of practice and experience, and even that can be undermined. I've had several friends who struggle with anxiety, and I've come face to face with it at various times myself, so I know it's not an easy thing to work past.

I've struggled a long time with how to express myself, at times wanting to explore things in metaphors and turns of phrase that try to capture people's attention and make them think. At other times I've tried to illustrate thoughts or concepts visually, but more often I've simply 'drawn stuff' without a particular purpose in mind.

Recently I've wanted to express my thoughts directly to try and discover a more purposeful way to spend my time. I'm not nervous about sharing so much as I am uncertain, but that's a part of honesty too. Being anxious just means you understand that outcomes are uncertain.

All that said, expect some metaphors, as to me reality is as much about what happens in my mind as outside of it. I find the world of daydreams and thoughtful feelings is best understood through metaphors.

A book I picked up by Jack Hamm on drawing scenery (http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Scene...../dp/0399508066) first clued me into composing pictures as abstract spaces. While composition isn't something I've mastered by any means, that concept gave me a huge boost at the time, and made drawing in general a lot less frustrating.

Basically, the idea is that each picture can be divided into spaces of different value (darker or lighter) for the most readable composition. Thus, your foreground might be the lightest, middle ground a medium shade, and background the darkest, or any combination thereof. Some really striking graphic designs are only black and white with no shades in between.

In any case, it got me to thinking about the problem of color and if it could be solved similarly. Abstraction helped me see the relationship between value and composition, so maybe abstract color pictures will help me to better see who to put color into play in more conventional art. Any results of my experimentation will probably go into scraps at best, unless people really think they're worth seeing.

Feel free to share your own experiences/thoughts.